I can't say I like the trades logain made and he has 3 great players, but I would prefer the nate side of the 1st deal. imo logain will be strap'd to finish his first 6 players. Heel may have back'd himself into the 3rd level players, at this point the player quality is too high to back up. We're quickly approaching players with higher liability. Still there is plenty of stratagy in this draft...

I wasn't thinking about Josh Smith yesterday...but looking at his numbers, I like what he brings to the table for us. Thanks to the higher cap in this league, we can afford him.

He gives us the ability to do a number of things. Previous to the pick (and for now), I had Kobe at PG, Scottie at SG and Bobby Jones at SF. JSmoove doesn't have great orebs for a PF, but his drebs are pretty decent.

He gives us a little extra perimeter shooting in 4/5 seasons, too.

2400 - 2900 minutes is nice for consistency.

Since we don't have a "true" PG, if we run all four of our drafted guys as starters (with my current season slotting) we would have 54.8 - 62.6 Ast% in four starters (not great, but not terrible and again, fairly consistent).

Bobby has one season where he is only a 95% at SF, but, Josh has two seasons where he can play SG, if we want to mix it up with Josh or Scottie (still) at SG, the other at SF and move Bobby to PF.

We COULD also, depending on how things go, use Josh as a backup SG/SF/PF who provides some usage and assists off the bench.

We're between 100.2 and 102.7 total usage (16 or 17 tier points in each season).

At this point, I'm happy with where we are. With the way I, at the moment, have our seasons distributed we are between 10,657 and 11,612 minutes with between $27,712,627 and $31,036,129 spent in salary.

Having guys with fairly consistent minutes in their five seasons makes it pretty easy to swap seasons around...so far I'm trying to balance out the seasons (e.g. keep assists %, usage, perimeter shooting, etc. fairly even). I wonder how many people are using that method or trying to make one great season and do what they can with the rest.

Posted by dh555 on 5/4/2014 1:19:00 PM (view original):yea i was thinking the same thing...grab guys with 5 solid seasons that have similar mins to form a nice team core...filling out the rest will be the interesting part...not sure what to expect

never been a josh smith fan due to the poor shooting, but sacrifices will have to be made in this league...he fits in with your team style

I went back and forth on the strategy. I was very close to going more the "consistency" route in the second round, where at times I was close to picking both Wes Unseld (criminally underrated in most of our drafts, IMO) and Walt Frazier. But I think you can't try to be "good" in all five seasons in this format, you have to try to be "great" in 2-3 of them. IMO you can't be a title contender all five years. So you see that playing out with my team - Howard is a very consistent anchor to build around, but the Matrix (while certainly having five good seasons) is a little different in every season, and obviously Walton and Barry only one great season each, and then fill in with elite backup-minute seasons the rest of the time. We'll see how it works out. It leaves me shorter than others in minutes for seasons 3-5 or so, but I think I'm well on the way to putting out two legit title contenders. It'll be interesting to see what kind of guys are around in rounds 8-12 when we're trying to fill in the gaps.

The real question will be if I try to combine the "best" seasons of all my guys, or to mix it up a little to stretch the contending into 3-4 seasons. Still not sure about that.

I've gone the balanced route. TRB, Of course you have built another defensive monster. I have also gone the balanced route. I might end up with 5 48 win teams but not sure. I haven't drafted this format before (progressive , choice progressive or otherwise). I am definitely wondering if any "rocket fuel" will be acailable later than normal to turn an ordinary team into a title team for a specific season. I do know that among the balanced squad I have, I will certainly try to use all of their best seasons together. Just not sure which year to bust that out or what that "best" combo ceiling is.

Posted by dh555 on 5/4/2014 1:19:00 PM (view original):yea i was thinking the same thing...grab guys with 5 solid seasons that have similar mins to form a nice team core...filling out the rest will be the interesting part...not sure what to expect

never been a josh smith fan due to the poor shooting, but sacrifices will have to be made in this league...he fits in with your team style

This may be the first time I've ever used him (including open leagues back in the day). We're using seasons with efg%s of 47, 49.1, 50.2, 50.5 and 50.8. So they aren't great, but other than the 47 season (which happens to be the highest usage season of him we're using) he's not terrible.

Posted by jkaye24 on 5/4/2014 1:49:00 PM (view original):I've gone the balanced route. TRB, Of course you have built another defensive monster. I have also gone the balanced route. I might end up with 5 48 win teams but not sure. I haven't drafted this format before (progressive , choice progressive or otherwise). I am definitely wondering if any "rocket fuel" will be acailable later than normal to turn an ordinary team into a title team for a specific season. I do know that among the balanced squad I have, I will certainly try to use all of their best seasons together. Just not sure which year to bust that out or what that "best" combo ceiling is.

I am not sure how I am dividing up the seasons of my guys yet. I believe in all 5 seasons my top 3 guys will be among the best offensive big 3's in the league regardless of seasons I choose. I don't know my plan yet for the rest of the draft and the future.. We will see who is on the board when I pick again!

You have an interesting squad there trb, not sure how it will play out.

Even though I missed on some PG targets I was looking for early, I'm very happy with how my team is shaping up. I have Howard as my frontcourt anchor, bringing huge efg% and rebounds to every season, 90 D in at least three seasons (80+ in at least four, not sure what the 5th season I'll be using is yet). Walton will either back up Howard (keeping a good defender on the floor at all times) or start next to him, and brings needed assists from the frontcourt. Matrix is the glue guy at the 3 - although 2 of his good seasons are annoyingly only 98% there - bringing D, great rebounds for a SF, a decent number of threes, and low negatives. Harden and Barry will either start together at the 1/2, or one start with another backing up. Barry can platoon at PG for a couple seasons with high assist numbers.

Above all, I have some needed flexibility going into the next rounds, thanks to the variety of different things Matrix, Harden, and Barry can bring to the table. I can take either low or high usage guys coming up, and I have enough threes to be able to take a backcourt player that doesn't shoot many. Not too many weaknesses now, aside from probably needing more minutes from the rest of the draft than most people.